The world’s largest Usenet provider, News-Service.com of Amsterdam, has closed down. click the screenshot below to read their statement:
While you probably never heard of this company, that’s only because they didn’t sell to the public. News-Service was a wholesaler and provided the Usenet service for many ISPs and resellers. More Usenet data traveled through their servers than any other Usenet company. See the stats on this site.
Apparently, The Netherlands does not have anything like the “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act like we have here in the USA.
It’s not clear if users have been effected. Outsourcing ISP’s and resellers, of course, can just switch to another wholesaler. However, it’s not clear if the rest of the industry has the capacity to absorb News-Service’s massive client base so quickly after the judge’s order to shut down (just 30 days ago).
So, if your Usenet provider is having problems, this could be the reason why – especially if you are in Europe. For some options, see the Usenet providers on this page.